Tuesday, July 16, 2013

As someone who was a young adult in the 1980s, part of my musical soundtrack was provided by a Californian band called Game Theory, led by Scott Miller. Sadly, he passed away in April at the age of 53. I only found out about this recently, when I went to his website to see what he was up to.

It's too bad that Game Theory's albums never hit the same level of success as their peers R.E.M. or Let's Active. Still - they're considered one of the most hyper-literate power-pop bands ever, and their "difficult" double-album masterpiece "Lolita Nation" is still a sought after collector's piece. (Apparently, I'm one of the few people who own an original copy of this on CD.)

As a thank you to the fans, all of Game Theory's albums - including Lolita Nation - are on the above listed website for free downloading.

According to the webmaster: "My main goal is to prevent people from trying to capitalize by selling these long out of print albums for lots of money. I want everybody who would like to hear these albums to be able to do so without paying outrageous prices".

If you're not sure where to begin, I'd strongly urge downloading "Tinkers To Evers To Chance", which was a "greatest non-hits" personally selected by Scott himself. It's a great introduction to his band and it does contain selections from Lolita Nation.

His next band, The Loud Family, is also worth investigating. However - they tend to be a little more abstract than Game Theory. I'd start with their first album, "Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things", and see if that's your cup of tea. (The Loud Family albums are available on Spotify, I believe)